Town Square

Arson suspected in Palo Alto hills fires

A "person of interest" has been identified by police and fire officials in connection with five fires that burned Wednesday afternoon in the Pearson Arastradero Preserve in Palo Alto, Palo Alto fire Battalion Chief Niles Broussard said.

There have been multiple arsons over the years along there. Several years ago there was a huge fire in which many horses died. That fire was big because of all the eucalyptus trees, many of which still exist. I hope they manage to get it under control and that no people or animals are hurt.

Posted by Too Close For Comfort
a resident of Los Altos Hills
on Aug 8, 2012 at 6:09 pm

I watched the entire fire fighting effort from my home across the street from the fire, and it was extraordinarily great. Thank you, thank you, thank you to the many brave fire fighters from Palo Alto, Woodside, Coastside Fire, and Cal Fire for quickly defeating this fire. We were worried until we saw the string of planes and helicopters dropping fire retardant and water. The flames were soon reduced to benign white smoke, which is almost dissipated by now. We feel like we have the most prepared fire fighters in the state!

I had my ranch torched by somebody...I don'tknow who, but it was a man-made event, according to the fire authorities. The esential issue is that dry oats and oaks and pines in the open lands, ARE going to burn, because they WILL be lit up. This is no longer the age where natural events spark a wildfire...it is usually arson, with a purpose. This forces us, who own wildlands, to employ bulldozers to create fire brakes...not a good thing for the ecology of the land. In fact, this arson is a domestic terrorism.

Small acreages, in California, are being hijacked by larger acreages, especially the drug cartels and grape growers, who want their lands expanded and protected. The drug cartels and the grape growers are part of the same cartel. My ranch didn't have any real problems until the last few years. Then I started get get strong-armed "offers" to sell my land. I have always left my land to wildlife, with no monetary reward. I politely refused the various offers to purchase my place. Then I got burnt out, twice ...quickly follwed by more offers to buy me out, by the drug guys and the grape guys.

Let's not be naive here, musical. The big losers are the wildlife. The winners are the cartels.

CalFire (used to be CDF) determines the causes of fires, near roads, according to the temperature and humidity. The vast majority of fires are purposely lit, not the result of sparks and tossed cigarettes, etc.

Some of such fires are the result of nihilists/sickos, but others have a specific purpose, to make gain.

Posted by Who???
a resident of Another Palo Alto neighborhood
on Aug 8, 2012 at 9:28 pm

Marvin, CDF, California Division of Forestry has not used that name in years. They have been "Cal Fire" for quite some time, not sure if you are trying to dilute the credit due to our local FD's, but it was our local departments handling this incident, supported by Cal Fire not the other way around.

Posted by Angela Hey
a resident of Portola Valley
on Aug 8, 2012 at 10:34 pm

Listening to the firemen on firedispatch.com it reported a biker had seen someone walking away from the fire. Palo Alto police were investigating. So if anyone saw anything report to Palo Alto police.

I biked Arastradero shortly before it opened to cars. It was nice not to have to constantly look in the rear view mirror and work out when to slow down and when to accelerate so as to avoid being hit by a car on a blind corner. They should close the road on Sundays like they close Canada Road.

Warning to bikers - there is a crack in the road as you head from Portola Valley up the hill on Arastradero Road towards Los Altos - there are cones and a warning sign. Note to road repairers - get it fixed before it rains - I once broke an axle on my car with a pothole on Arastradero.

Sorry for your troubles John. I saw your point but doubted there was such a purpose, or any purpose, in mind for this specific incident. If there was a motive, this arsonist might be easier to track down. Your expanded story is indeed scary, and I don't doubt it for a minute. One can almost connect the dots on that hidden $54 million and the imminent state park closures. The Park Preservation fund-raisers who pitched me this spring were confident that Henry Coe was about to turn into one huge cartel-owned pot farm. Modern plot for a remake of Shane.

Posted by Kate
a resident of Community Center
on Aug 9, 2012 at 7:09 am

What a great job PAFD did and also the other fire departments that came to help! I am so glad that there wasn't a fire station closed down at the time, cause who knows how large this fire could have gotten if they were not there to put it out! This is why you should not close fire stations!!!

Posted by Response to Angela Hey
a resident of Another Palo Alto neighborhood
on Aug 9, 2012 at 11:02 am

Arastradero Road between Alpine and Page Mill Roads crossed through several jurisdictions. If you can somehow figure out in which jurisdiction your identified pothole is located, then notify that jurisdiction's Public Works department about fixing it. It does appear you are talking about the eastbound direction.

Posted by Taxpayer
a resident of Downtown North
on Aug 9, 2012 at 11:32 am

Hey Kate,

No, of course we don't want to chance it. Let's add 4-5 more fire stations in the hills. We need 50 more union fire employees spending most of their time sleeping and making $200K per year. Safety at any cost. No need to worry about budgets as long as union ff's are retiring as millionaires.

Thank goodness CalFire stepped in and took care of the fire yesterday.

Posted by Kate
a resident of College Terrace
on Aug 9, 2012 at 12:47 pm

Hey Taxpayer,
No one is asking for 4-5 more stations, just to keep the ones that we have open. The firefighters are trying to keep us safe, from a fire and from any medical issue. They are doing a job that you don't want to do, if fact people run away from what they do and people expect them to help in the worst times. I think that most people forget what it means to use 911 and receive help from police or fire. I think people are missing the point, the firefighters did an amazing job and they deserve the recognition from people in the city.

I agree with you, I'm glad CalFire could assit. And I'm glad Menlo Park, Woodside, Santa Clara County Firefighters could help also.

I have no idea what this particular fire is about, but I would not rule out any of these possible motivations. Unless the investigators already have their guy(s), I would suggest an interview with the private landowners in the area, especially if they have been approached to buy/lease their land; or if they have spotted pot grows and called the police (or eradicated the plants themselves). There are also a number of insurance fraud schemes that are possible.

Posted by Debbie
a resident of another community
on Aug 9, 2012 at 2:05 pm

I could see the smoke and firefighters from my horse's stall, just across the street. Thank you, thank you, thank you to all of the firefighters for quickly bringing the fire under control. Thank you to the police who helped control the situation. No loss of buildings and no injuries. And, it did not spread across the street to the 155 horses.

Let's just keep the fire protection we have in place, no more no less.

Especially when the city council has so much fun spending our tax dollars on pet projects that "feel good" while abdicating their responsibility to keep the public safe and other boring responsibilities such as attending to infrastructure.

Every week it seems some new exciting project is approved that will cost millions. The most recently approved project to paint colored bike lanes around the city comes to mind. A really nice idea. But more essential than keeping our already largely cut fire department without further reductions?

Posted by Another-Suspicious-Wildfire
a resident of Another Palo Alto neighborhood
on Aug 9, 2012 at 6:42 pm

&gt; willing to chance it?

You bet! Given the size of that area in the Foothills, and the multiple jurisdictions involved—it would be better to create a Foothills Fire Protection District, and let one centralized Fire Department deal with the issues that ultimately involve all of the current jurisdictions more effectively than currently are being handled independently.

Using money to install monitoring equipment that would provide alerts to the primary, and secondary, fire suppression jurisdictions. Having the station up in the hills does reduce the response time for a fire nearby, but not any other units. If fires were detected more quickly, then the 5-8 minutes that are gained by having the station open would be offset. With a merged fire jurisdiction, it would have the authority to assess a small fee from each property owner, which the City of Palo Alto does not seem willing to do, or can not do.

Given a sufficiently well-designed Fire Suppression District, there might be sufficient funding to even keep aircraft in the air during periods of high fire likelihood. Currently, one small fire station can not provide much but a 5-8 minute response for the first unit on the scene.

&gt; keep what we have in place?

What? You seem to be suggesting no further analysis of possibilities, no addition of high-tech fire detection/suppression equipment. This makes absolutely no sense at all!!!

Posted by Another-Suspicious-Wildfire
a resident of Another Palo Alto neighborhood
on Aug 9, 2012 at 7:44 pm

&gt; Did this play any role in the fire?

Go point. The PAFD has real transparency problems, so there is little evidence that any fires have been detected by this equipment.

What's really needed is a camera system that operates in both the visible light domain, and the infrared domain. Additionally, the video streams need to be monitored via vision system software, which has the ability to alert both the 911 operator, as well as personnel within the FD.

All of this information needs to be logged, and published so that the public can better understand whether or not the FD is making use of this equipment.

Without the software monitoring these streams, a human would have to be watching the cameras.

Posted by Nora Charles
a resident of Stanford
on Aug 10, 2012 at 12:56 am

Great job, firefighters, as always. This is very disturbing, especially as there were so many horses near harm's way. I may be alone in this, but I firmly believe that arson should be a death penalty crime.